Diet Pills Scam Allegations: The Case Of UberVita

Did A Supplement Company Just Get Outed As A Scam By An Anonymous Imgur User?

Updated: Ubervita responded to our e-mail queries. We have updated the article below to reflect this. We have already reached out to Amazon for an official clarification of their reviewing policies, and forwarded supplemental questions to Ubervita. This article will be updated with their responses.

Last night an anonymous user on the popular image-sharing website imgur.com posted a lengthy post demonstrating how a company can allegedly game the Amazon user reviews system.

Titled “The truth behind Amazon fraud,” the anonymous user alleged, in detail, that Amazon merchants UberVita, Eden Ponds Labs and Spyder Nutrition, which are all owned by a Seattle businessman and his girlfriend, sold a variety of supplements like weight loss pills and testosterone boosters and pursued a three-pronged strategy for getting publicity: 1. Offering free products to anybody who would leave a good review 2. Leaving bad reviews on competitors’ pages 3. Suing people who leave one-star reviews on their websites. It’s clearly working: the Ubervita W700 “Hyper Metabolizer” capsules is listed as the No. 1 seller in the categories of “Fat Burners” and “Supplements” and No. 2 in “Appetite Control & Suppressants.” As of this writing, there are over 7,000 reviews for the product, with about two-thirds of them being five-star reviews.

The Ubervita W700 is one of the top-selling supplements on Amazon.

Now, as AskMen fitness columnist James Fell would tell you, the workout supplement industry is rife with companies making bogus claims and selling dubious products. (As an aside: I once worked for an online fitness store, writing product descriptions for hundreds of products, and can actually attest to have written a few of them myself.)

This isn’t the first time UberVita has been flagged for suspicious activity. The review site dietpillswatchdog.com raised concerns about the product in May 2014, although it did note that the customer reviews were “predominantly positive.” One commenter posted, “Upon closer inspection of Ubervita W700 Thermogenic Hyper Metabolizer, it becomes obvious that the company is flooding Amazon with fraudulent 4 and 5 star customer reviews to increase the product’s ranking and sales,” with others confirming that they were also offered free products to boost their reviews. Similarly, another review on a different site made a very similar allegation.

In an email sent to me by an Ubervita employee, the company denied the charges. "We don't bribe people to write "fake" reviews, as the defamatory article on Imgur insinuates. Like any online seller, we follow up with customers and ask them to write about their experience, whether it be a positive or negative: 3-star, 4-star, or 5-star or whatever.... We are happy to give out a free bottle no matter what their experience is— even if it is a 1-star. We always encourage customers to be honest about their experience, and never ask them to lie, write glowing positive reviews, or write 5-star reviews," said an employee named Christian Lomack. They also argued that Amazon's Terms Of Service allow for reviews in exchange for free products. On the other hand, they told clients "Merchants such as Amazon see 4 and 3 star reviews as the equivalent of a negative."

It's worth pointing out that Amazon has not yet accused the company of any violation of their terms of service, and it's possible they're not technically violating anything. But the problem of dubious reviews probably extends beyond a single company or group of companies. If you look down the list of the top-sellers in the Fat Burner category on Amazon, many of them have thousands of overwhelmingly five-star reviews, often posted by Amazon users who have posted only one review. You can scroll through for yourself and check out some of the reviews of the various top-sellers here. Ironically enough, it was UberVita that last year alleged that they were the victim of review abuse, claiming there had been an orchestrated campaign against them.

They con

There’s also the fact that “weight loss” pills boasting of incredibly scientific proprietary formulas in general are essentially just extreme doses of caffeine (which increases your metabolism), with a few other ingredients like raspberry ketones thrown in to make the recipe seem more complicated than it is. Quite a few of the products often have diuretics included as well, which will cause the user to lose a few pounds of water weight in the first week — weight which will be almost instantly regained. And of course, your body will simply adjust to the massive dose of caffeine you’re giving it and the effect of pills is bound to be quite temporary.

If you’re looking for resources on how to watch out for fake reviews online, there are a few resources you can check out. The problem extends beyond weight loss pills — for instance, I've come across a couple of different hotels and hostels in my travels offering a room discount for a positive TripAdvisor review. For hotels, you can check out the site Review Skeptic, which uses an algorithm to determine which hotel reviews are suspicious. For all other products, be wary of products with reviews that are overwhelmingly five-star or one-star, and of reviewers who have either only reviewed one product, or give glowing reviews to everything they buy. You can see a more complete list of tips here.

Always make sure to do your research and approach any supplements with a healthy dose of skepticism. Lastly, for diet pills, here’s a good rule of thumb: Don’t buy them in the first place.

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